The Red-Haired Woman

The Red-Haired Woman is a 2017 novel by Orhan Pamuk, translated from Turkish into English by Ekin Oklap.

Typical of Pamuk’s work, the novel, divided into three parts, is set in Istanbul. As the novel opens, it is the mid-1980s. Cem Çelik, the teenaged narrator and protagonist of the book, lives with his parents and is working toward his goal of becoming a writer. His father, who owns a pharmacy, disappears one day, leading Cem to believe that he has been seized by government officials due to his controversial political beliefs.

After Cem’s father disappears, money is tight. Cem takes a job as an apprentice with a well-digger for the summer in order to raise money for his education, which he feels is imperative if he is going to be a writer. Cem goes along with the well-digger, Master Mahmut, to the nearby rural town of Öngören where they have been hired to dig a well for a wealthy businessman who lives there. Cem starts to look to Mahmut as a father figure, as memories of his own father start to fade away. While they work, Cem and Mahmut like to exchange stories. Cem tells Mahmut the story of Oedipus. References to this story recur throughout the novel.



One day, while Cem happens to be in the town center of Öngören, he notices a woman with a vibrant head of red hair. Finding her beauty astounding, he soon becomes fixated on the idea of learning more about her. As Cem and Mahmut continue to work on the well, Cem often looks for opportunities to go into town in the hope that he might run into the red-haired woman once again. Learning that she is an actor who performs with a local theatre troupe, he decides to go see her perform. During the show, the troupe reenacts many stories, one of which is the story of Rostam and Sohrab. After the show, the red-haired woman finds Cem, introducing herself as Gülcihan. Cem invites Gülcihan to take a walk with him, and they spend some time talking and getting to know each other. They end up having sex that night.

The next day, Cem goes back to work on the well, still distracted by the events of the previous evening. While daydreaming about Gülcihan, Cem accidentally drops a bucket into the well while Mahmut is inside. He fears that the bucket has hit Mahmut on the head and killed him. He decides to flee the scene and never speak of the incident again, knowing this also means that he cannot return to Öngören, leaving his dreams of the red-haired woman behind.

Cem goes on to university, where he decides to study engineering, abandoning his dream of becoming a writer in favor of a more practical career path. He becomes involved with another student named Ayse, and they eventually decide to get married. Cem goes on to work for a building development company, but he remains fixated on the stories of Oedipus and Rostam and Sohrab. Finding his mind constantly returning to the plots of these stories, he re-reads them often. They come to shape his view about father-son relationships.



Cem and Ayse learn that they are unable to have children due to an issue with Ayse’s reproductive system. Instead, they decide to create a business together, founding their own building development company, which they call Sohrab. After the company develops into a resounding success, Cem feels ready to finally reunite with his father, who he believes will be quite proud of him. The two meet, but Cem’s father passes away soon after as he is already very old. After his father’s passing, Cem learns that his father also had an affair with Gülichan and that Mahmut was only injured by the bucket that he had dropped years before, although he is now dead from old age.

One day, Cem receives a strange letter from a man called Enver who lives in Öngören and claims to be the son of Cem and Gülcihan. Cem is skeptical, but a paternity test proves his claim true. Cem goes to Öngören, where he sees Gülcihan for the first time in twenty-six years, and he meets his son, Enver. Cem and Enver take a walk together around town, catching up on the last twenty-six years of both their lives. However, as the conversation continues, it becomes apparent that Enver harbors resentment towards Cem for not being in his life all these years. The two men begin to argue, and it escalates into a physical altercation in which Cem is killed. The novel concludes with an epilogue by Gülichan, who insists that her son did not intend to kill his father.